Just finished building the 1/48 Arii Chance Vought F4U-1A Corsair of mine and I have to say that it was a fun build. Learned a lot during this build. Some experiments worked out fine on this build others didn't, I therefore can't say that this will be the last Corsair I will ever build. Considering also that the Corsair is one of my most favorite plane designs, I definitely see myself building a whole lot more of these in the future.
This particular model of the F4U Corsair belonged to the VMF-111 “Devil Dogs” of the Marines. Referred to as “Ole 122″, it received a citation for having successfully flown 100 bombing and 68 reconnaissance missions for a period of 6 months using the same engine.
I actually did a partial build diary for this, then I sorta got busy so I skipped that part and just completed the build instead. Part I could be found here, while part II could be found here.
Main paints used for this build were pylox precaution blue for the light blue parts (I don't think nippon paints makes this color anymore). For the dark blue parts it was a mixture of 80% tivoli blue + 20% bosny black flat. I used a Badger 250-2 for painting this paint mix, its a brilliant cheap airbrush that I won't lose any sleep over if ever it gets damaged by my use of lacquer paints with it. For the interior green parts I used pylox lazer refrigerator green. After painting was done I applied some Bosny Dull Laquer in order to give it a matte finish.
Prior to building this kit I first washed the runners with dishwashing soap and a brush in a pan in order to remove any release agents left on the runners used during the injection molding process.
Before painting I first wet sanded the part using a 1000 grit sandpaper in order to create micro holes that the paint can cling on to. I also applied some WIN/TOA plastic primer on the surface of the main parts to make sure that the paint sticks on to the part.
For masking, I used some blue tack and masking tape. For the windshield nothing beats Tamiya Masking tape.
Post shading was done by means of some black eye shadow make-up. I wanted to give it a white post shading on the dark blue parts using some white eye shadow makeup, but some areas with the white eye shadow kept disappearing within the paint whenever I applied the matte coat...didn't really get the effect that I wanted to achieve.
All in all I loved building this kit. It wasn't a perfect build, owing to my still developing skills, but it was a good learning experience. First World War II kit build to for me after more than 20 years. I loved the simplicity of the design, not much gimmicks in this model kit but that's what I was looking for in the first place, just a straight out build without any frills to relax myself.
